Vinyl records are making a comeback.......so a vintage shop would be a good idea! HAH seriously, that is an idea though. Frankly I'd look into a coffee shop / internet cafe type of thing.....I really saw video stores being passe about 10 years ago. That would be cheapest, plus most video stores have lots of windows, so they are conducive to coffee / juice bars. Actually the "new thing" is 3D printing. I'd tell them to invest in various 3D printers and offer services to print 3D objects. I have been pushing this tech for 10 years (not in that market area, but recognize the potential) I thought the DVD store thing was dead anyway.....Now with Netflix, VuDu, roku, GoogleTV, etc DVD is pretty much a data storage media or backups.

If not for the "3 year old Surrogates" who invaded the Corporate IT world in the mid 90's, Windows would have never lasted THIS LONG! Windows 8 will be the stake that kills the giant Ogre that is Redmond and Microsoft. "EM" Balmer is already there measuring for the interment ceremony. Trust me, I was directly involved in a large (ok HUGE) company in the mid to late 1990's when the OS wars (Microsoft Vs Microsoft vs. Novell, vs. UNIX) were in full swing. BY FAR the majority of mindless foot dragging and foul language emanated from the "3 year olds" who had managed to parlay a spot in development HOW? Well following a stint on the "help desk" where their "rudimentary windows skills" translated into "Server Skills"......Only and I mean ONLY reason this worked was that the Microsoft Servers were SO DUMBED DOWN, that a 3 year old could actually configure them. I called this process "Click and Hope" in terms of "go through the GUIs long enough, and at some point (like the monkeys typing on typewriters" one would ultimately randomly create something intelligible. The unfortunate thing was that the cost of deployment, support, and overall COI was so inflated by this inefficient model that many companies could not compete. In 1995 an IBM OS/2 server could serve as domain controller and serve 500-700 users, Microsoft was limited to 100 users max. In terms of application serving and reducing COI of software, again Microsoft with its "flagship" (more like Pirate ship) office ABSOLUTELY fought this concept, and wanted an Office copy on every PC. Again the 3 year olds complied. Had OS/2 Warp, Sun Solaris X86, or even Novel been given an “equal shot” by the industry (rather than MGMT relying on the “smoke and mirrors” at Microsoft, we would be about 10 years further along right now. With lots and lots of the IT “GURUS” as baristas at Starbucks. Promises were made to upper management (at our company) from Redmond at "dog and pony" events telling how Windows 95 could extend your desktop to any other PC in the company (forgot to tell you that the other machine would have to mirror yours exactly and that specialized apps on your PC were not accessible to the other PC). This was major as it was one of the primary reasons Windows 95 was deployed. (BTW) this capability STILL does not exist natively (on Microsoft products anyway). UNIX and LINUX could do it at the time. Now you can use the Virtual PC and other similar technologies to approximate what Microsoft claimed and swore by in 1995! By my count, that is almost 20 years of lies alone!!! As far as the "3 year old" people taking over IT, no where is this more apparent than today. "Click and Hope" configuration is the norm, breaking standards the goal, and dominance through devotion the only key. Much like a 3 year old clings to a parent for sustenance and survival, so have the masses those beginnings in the 1990’s have devoted their "souls" if you will to promoting a now lumbering and faltering giant. Unfortunately for many who "banked" on Microsoft dominating for their career span, a younger and hipper crowd has deemed APPLE the new regent and status symbol. While I see neither "winning" long term, they will collectively muddy the waters until a "new" victor emerges. While many would arguable say that XP and perhaps windows 7 are useful and "easy" to use, never in its history has Microsoft provided a feature rich tool upon which an enterprise could be built. Only the point and click and pictures made this tech viable for the masses of IT incompetents. And before extolling the innovation of Windows NT, remember that that NT OS was "co-developed" (by co I mean written by IBM and "co opted" by Microsoft) and that the overwhelming success of that project was OS/2 (version 2.11 - WARP). So Forget NT as an "innovation" Prior to that, Windows 3.1 was a "rip off" of the Mac interface (albeit poorly implemented) And MS DOS before that was "essentially stolen" from another small company in Washington State and handed off to IBM as a Microsoft "innovation". With a track record like that, Microsoft in most respects most closely resembles the business model of china (covert cooperate and conquer) using the "enemy's own tools against them. In closing, let me say that the "success and failure" of Microsoft has been driven by and architected by “3 year olds”, so in fact this thread is ESSENTIALLY TRUE! QED

What is passing for a "Computer Science Degree" today at 4 year schools is both way overpriced and does not hit the mark in terms of skills needed. Our MBA's in the Mega Banks have shipped as many tech jobs overseas that they can, and frankly for the moment there are plenty of people to do the job, adn are just as anxious to drag people from foreign countries here.....because they are "smarter"....I know, nobody with less than a Business Administration degree can understand either. What we need is people innovating, not just learning Microsoft applications and thinking they are coders. Thanks to Microsoft and Apple, an entire generation of people has not even learned architecture or other important skills that used to be part of a CS major. (I have a B.A. and M.S. in Comp Science and nearly a PhD in Instructional Design. Thinking out of the box these days is writing a "cute bit" of object code. to make real advances in the field, it is necessary to have people who have gotten their hands dirty and done the work. IMHO Junior colleges are to a large degree filling this need of turning students out into the work force in a fiscally and ethically responsible manner.

You mean that the "science consultants" from DARPA, JPL, CALTECH, MIT, and even NASA, and various other places that advised the Creator of Star Trek (Gene Roddenberrry) as well as the writers were RIGHT???? Wow, that is truly an AMAZING COINCIDENCE!!!! Next thing you know we will have communicators, Mr. Spocks data tablets, and selective lethality weapons!

Yes, I am afraid it is..... Will cost A LOT of bloated IT jobs though!! plus single minded folk who don't have demonstrable skills beyond "poke and hope" (sorry, Point and Click). Gee, Apple uses Linux (tha tis what is "under the covers" of OS X. Only "odd man out" is M$!! Not for long though, Windows 8 will sink that ship.

C'mon there HAS to be a way to "weed out" those who CAN from those who "CAN'T" and frankly screen out potential upstarts and keep only the chaff. At least keep the smart people CONTRACTORS so they aren't really part of the company, though they often doo all of the heavy lifting. Just more MBA PAP to muddy the waters and provide excuses to promote your buddies.

What will the "BRAINIAC MBAS" think of next? We live in a world of irony.....based on this logic, We would all read by candle light, as at 10,000 "commits" Tom Edison's people would have never have perfected (or discovered for that matter) the electric lightbulb. What a moronic and short sighted approach to innovation. The MBAs btw- same folks that brought us OUTSOURCING and th ehousing bubble (hows THAt working for you????) are the single greatest force against American Exceptoinalism that exist. Short term profits do not a strong economy or industry make. How about we quantify how much time is wasted by redundant middle level mgmt, and needless meetings, and frankly if the mgmt chain doesn't understand a new technology in 15 minutes, (without a helpdesk person) then send them packing. Same logic. Why waste time trainign peope to drive cars, just have an off shore person with a two way radio for the driver to ask question to (i.e. what does the octagon shaped red sign mean......) wouldn't that be cool. NOT!!! "BAN THE MBA SAVE THE WORLD!"

What about "C"?? You can get the Watcom compiler and "code away" in "C" for free. Basic was ok in that it let "non programmers" program, but frankly, in terms of "coding" It really was a rather limited interpreted language.....not unlike (but far inferior to) scripted languages like Javascript and others. IMHO Microsoft "bastardized" the term BASIC as a programming language with its many "kit bashes" of the language and misuse of the name. Same as "C#" just a marketing attempt to hitch your wagon onto a industry standard and give it credibility with the "masses" while hiding the fact it is a Java CLONE. BASIC was written in 1968, and was a "1st / 2nd generation language, any attempts to update have it miming "C" and similar languages, therefore ceasing to be BASIC and becoming something else.

Bieeanda, IF NOT FOR OUR CORRUPT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND elected mis-spenders, we'd have the flying cars (they do exist) as well as many of the other predictions. I resent not having the tech that was discussed when I was a kid, and all of us still driving computerized Model "A"s. Nothing wrong with the Model A, but frankly our cars differs very little from the overall design of almost a century ago. Softer seats, mp3 players, but same basic design. This flies in the face of reason. For some perspective, the '57 Chevy and the SR-71 Blackbird were designed at about the same time. The '57 Chevy is an antique car, the SR-71 purportedly the fastest plane we have ever had. The ONLY reason we know of the SR-71's existence (actually the designator was RS-71) was a "slip" by then President Johnson leaking the name by mistake at a press conference and "SPELLING IT WRONG"!! Also the name Reconnaissance Surveillance implies that there were other (Combat?) versions of the same aircraft, which have never been seen publicly. The SR-71 differs so much fundamentally from commercial plane that side by side on the ground they look as similar as apples and oranges. Willing suspension of disbelief aide, what has ALL the tax money that has been spent for the past 50 years gone for???? I suspect there ARE many innovations sitting somewhere because they are: a.) Are extremely cheap, durable, and last for a long time b.) Would offer the public freedom from oil and government control, and c.) Have the capacity to improve the quality of life without government assistance. I have become very cynical in this respect as I do believe that as a society we are being controlled and kept at a "maintenance level” not allowed to experience fundamental change in technology or advancement by a bloated bureaucracy that feeds on it's own incompetence.

One would think that with a model like that (similar to the libraries at Alexandria or Constantinople) that a single destructive event (caused by nature or vandals) could destroy all of the books. I would suggest regional storehouses of books with multiple copies of same at all locations with accompanying "soft copy" in the form of extremely durable optical storage, engraved metal sheets, or some other long lived substance. In this way, no natural or man made event could destroy all written knowledge. One EMP event (i.e. Atom bomb exploded in the atmosphere above the continent, extreme solar flare or extrasolar event (Cosmic Ray Burst) etc. can render much of our electronic infrastructure inert) including ebooks. All written knowledge would be lost without the "storehouses". I'd say stock a lot of incandescent bulbs in there too!

Well, after airlines, Obama and Air force One, and Lady Gaga (talking of course), we do have things like Paintball guns, fire extinguishers, and ocean life (yes covering 75 percent of the planet. Phytoplankton (emit oxygen) Zooplankton (emit CO2), both greatly outnumber humans and are one of the main ingredients in CRUDE OIL (after being "processed" by the mantle after being swallows in to the subduction zones at the plate boundaries. so, our war on CO2 must begin with destroying all sea life. As the Plankton are the root of this food tree,snuff them out, and eventually now more CO2 Gas, (except the bloviating politicians). thsi doesn't count the amounts of CO2 directly emitted by these creatures every second of every day. Just a thought.

This guy is a complete moron. The idea is stupid, and frankly suprised the FAA would allow such a atrocity to be in US Airspace. (Then again, they let Southwest Airlines fly)....almost the same idea, people hanging onto a wing with jet engines strapped to it......cabin optional. This has GOT to be the STUPIDEST application of OZONE depleting gas I have seen. Why not fire the moron from a cannon, same aerodynamics involved there. (frankly I don't believe in Ozone layer depletion, that was a nod to our lib buddies. Not a must with the setup, just an example of how truly impractical and stupid this concept is. Not even worthy of an honorable mention X-Prize, those have to accomplish something. All this guy is doing is a prolonged attempt at a Darwin Award. We are stupider as a race for allowing morons like this to pursue stupidity on this scale, and to promote it with coverage. He is a Human version of Wile E. Coyote. what a joke. And before you comment and say I am jealous, I have developed many bleeding edge designs in many fields. Trust me, This is a joke. Next thing you know the guy will strap himself ot a rocket and be "rocket man"....."WOW look at me....I am rocket MORON".....

Well, since the modules can be classified by rules and the rules incorporated into an expert system, then I claim I can create a "virtual programming factory" which replaces the thousands of ".net programmers" with a 7x24 computer program which essentially does the same thing. You type in requirements, the software does the rest. And before you comment, YES this is possible and YES it has been done. .net is for assembly line programming, not innovation. .net is suited to countries like 3d world where we offload the daily grind and innovate here in the USA. that is why Senor Gates has been dumping code, OSes and money into India, China, and practically any other place he can. .NET is assembly like programming, pure microsoft pap, and it is not coding, it is assembling. No offense, but that is my opinion

I disagree, in that OO is for people who are effectively assembly line workers cranking out code and paid by the hour. It is not possible to build truly dynamic, high performance, innovative solutions using OO code. OO is a way to keep the "average programmer" from having to write code (deal with memory mgmt, pointers, etc. Gaining the power of "C" without understanding the language. Really, assembly line OO (C++ C#) versus Innovative "C". No comparison